Yesterday I started to see a number of tweets from parents and fellow pediatricians on Twitter criticizing Marissa Mayer for announcing that she’d return to work within 1-2 weeks of the delivery of her first child.
First off, I’ll start with my assumptions:
I’m authoring this post in the belief that Ms Mayer has access to quality health care–that is, she has the ear of a board-certified obstetrician, a board-certified pediatrician, and access to a lactation consultant as needed. My hunch is that if she needs info on evidence-based ramifications, from a health perspective, of going back to work 1-2 weeks postpartum, she can get the data she needs. Since she used to work at Google, I suspect she understands how to find what she needs online as well.
Assumptions acknowledged, I’d like to give Ms Mayer the respect she deserves. Faulting her for not making a traditional choice is devoid of context. She is lauded for her enormously successful career at a young age. She is the youngest CEO of any Fortune 500 company. To me it appears she has savvy and skill, invention and grit. Thanks in part to Ms Mayer as the first-female engineer at Google, we enjoy an entirely different electronic world with Gmail, Google search, maps, and images.
As we expect and work to have women hold an increased share of leadership jobs, academic or not, we must acknowledge we can’t have it both ways. “Women are still missing from medicine’s top ranks,” for example. We can’t want and wait for more and more women to have their hands at the wheels of powerful companies and organizations, only to question their commitment to their personal and their children’s health and well-being when they return to work. One week or 6 months postpartum…
I suspect Ms Mayer is making decisions in the context of what is right for her family. Her job security and her value in moving her company forward are a part of that. We make good decisions when we reflect on all those that are affected by our actions. Only we know how to prioritize our choices. I’ve yet to hear what her husband plans for the upcoming months. It’s possible he’ll be at the beck and call of this new baby. Why do we so often forget the realities of shared-parenting?
Further, this discussion misses a very important reality. Many of the new moms I get to see in clinic don’t work outside their homes. Women who work in their homes raising children often return to work within days of delivering a child. Stay-at-home-moms often come to the clinic 3-day postpartum visit alone with 2-4 children in tow. This reality reflects the SAHM commitment to career, too.
The banter continues today as Ms Mayer is criticized for using crowd-sourcing to name her child. I remain jaw-dropped that we could find another reason to fault her savvy, her nimble skill with technology, and assult her again as she begins the journey of motherhood.
The beautiful thing is this: none of us get access to the intimate bond she and her child will develop and cherish with their time together on earth. I also suspect she’s not looking for advice.
Congratulations, Marissa Mayer. May you delight in the most precious transition imaginable. May you inhale the health and vitality of your new baby and growing family. I am in awe of what you do for us all. And I trust you to make phenomenal decisions for your son.
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Erika Peterson says
LOVE your perspective – it’s absolutely true. We all have our own choices to make and can never fully understanding the inner workings of families that are not our own.
Mighty Casey says
Terrific post!
There’s a great Madeline Albright quote, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Why we pile on – and it’s usually us, not the guys – when a high-profile woman makes a personal decision about her family life is beyond me. I think that Marissa is clearly modeling effective-CEO behavior, which women (at home or in the C-suite) display whenever there’s a hard decision to be made about the welfare of their family.
laura gaines says
I agree that we should respect women’s choices and that women can’t have it both ways. However, I am NOT in awe of what she is doing for all of us. I don’t think that the best answer to the problem of women (especially moms) in the work place is for her to essentially refuse maternity leave. Why can’t companies be more accommodating and recognize the important contributions of women to their family? If one of the most powerful women in America isn’t going to stand up for the leave that she is medically and legally recommended/allowed, then it sets a precedent for women all the way down the chain, women who don’t have access to those things (quality health care, information, lactation consultant, etc). The truth is, she is a role model, whether she wants to be or not. And she isn’t the kind I want or need. And your argument about SAHMs I don’t really follow, because all moms on maternity leave are SAHMs (whether they have one child or four). They are all working. The difference is, their job allows them to breastfeed (more or less) on demand, bond with their newborn, have a break from stress/germ-filled offices, and focus on being a mom without the additional distractions/expectations of stock holders, board members, etc. She can do whatever she wants and I wish her the best, but it is not helping women who are fighting for accommodations /flexibility/respect to be the kind of mom AND employee they would like to be.
Suzanne Kiihne says
I think you’re glorifying the SAHM situation. A mum who’s a few days post-partum and has three children in tow at a doctor’s office is not living a stress-free life. If any of her children are in school, it is not a reduced-germ environment. And being a mom to different ages of children is very challenging. It is not one role, but many, requiring a lot of managerial skill. Distractions of …shareholders? Try distractions of 2-year olds! As my brother warned me ‘two is a lot more than one.’
I don’t know what Mrs Mayer’s working conditions are, but I suspect that she has a lot of authority, and at least some flexibility that comes with that. She also has access to an incredible amount of assistance. What’s right for her is probably not right for many other working moms. She is free to make her choices. We should absolutely support her for having a family at all! But we should also not make her the model for all working mothers.
Ruth says
I fundamentally agree that we should not judge women for their decisions, because each woman has a unique situation and we cannot possibly know all the factors involved. So while I agree with Laura that she is setting an unfortunate precedent and putting pressure on women to return to work before it’s necessarily safe or wise to do so, I still think it’s her decision to make.
My main reason for commenting, though, is to echo your point about fathers as primary caregivers. I have a friend who has two young children. His wife returned to work after only a few weeks; and he is full-time Dad to both children. He does a really fantastic job, dealing with all the SAHP (P for Parent) difficulties of sleep deprivation, competing demands from the children, and running the household. He occasionally comes up against prejudice, but mainly surprise and a lack of acknowledgement that fathers like him even exist.
Who knows what Ms Mayer’s partner is doing; but it’s because we don’t know that we must not judge.
laura gaines says
I very much agree and just wanted to clarify that I do not judge her decision on a personal level. I know lots of people who aren’t covered by FMLA and/or don’t have paid leave and had to do the same. I obviously don’t judge them either. But I just take serious issue with the notion that she is doing something for all of us that we should be in awe of.
But great point about dads!
Chryssa Piper says
I truly applaud and appreciate your point of view and logic. Our foremothers fought LONG and HARD for women to have freedom of CHOICE in how we manage our careers and families. Marissa is exercising that freedom of choice, and as you state, she is doing what is best for *HER* family.
Not every working woman is interested in taking 12+ weeks of maternity leave just because it might be available to them. I am not saying that there should not be more paid leave available or that every woman *should* have that option, only that it is NO ONE ELSE’S BUSINESS how Ms. Mayer and her husband choose to raise their family.
Kaisa Lervik says
Hailing from the Land of Never ending Maternity leaves (a.k.a. Norway), I’m always sorry to hear about the rather short maternity leaves and non-existent paternity leaves in the US. What I do know after having given birth to my first child 4 weeks early is that the first 2 weeks were EASY compared to the next months… I came home from hospital still in a work mind frame. Mind you, I enjoyed being with my little one, but the big parental shift hadn’t really happened in my brain yet. So if nothing on-towards happens to Marissa, she might keep her mind on two things, baby and business, without lapsing into full-time motherhood.
On the other hand, she has a husband, who probably will take care of things. She’s at the top of the food chain in her company, and should be able to have meetings that fit to HER schedule, which she can then organize around her baby if she wants to. She can afford a cook and someone to clean her house, if her husband doesn’t want to do that. She really has the best opportunity to be a working mum, in my opinion.
What I’m looking forward to see is how she’ll actually do it, and how it works out. I still think she’s an awesome woman for accomplishing what she has during her career so far, and I hope that she feels she has a choice to step down a bit if it turns out that family is a bit more important than a career for a few years.
Allison says
Thanks for that great perspective! I agree wholeheartedly!
Viki says
Mayer can afford a housekeeper, cook, live-in nanny or two, and even a wet nurse if she desires. She can change her schedule, delegate to subordinates, decide which meetings are best in person or via conference call. She can have a suite added to her office for the baby and nanny. Her wealth and power give the illusion that she is unique among women and can juggle being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and caring for a newborn, all days after giving birth. She’s not doing me any favors because I’m not in her class. In fact, the set of female executives of child bearing age is rather small. I love bell hooks critique of second-wave feminism in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. She makes an argument about how men need to be included in the feminism and also how gender is inter-related with class and race.
My career was in high tech and I will say I disliked working for women who had very abbreviated maternity leaves. None of the men I worked with skimped on their parental leave! The women attending conferences at 2 weeks pp made it seem like those of us on bed rest recovering from bouts of mastitis were pansies.
laura gaines says
@Suzanne Kiihne, I definitely see your point and that was not my intent. I did not mean to “glorify” SAHM or minimize their realities, but I did mean to glorify staying home with your newborn, because I do think that is the ideal and think most would agree. It is still work/stress. But it is STILL ideal, medically and emotionally (which doesn’t mean that someone in totally not normal circumstances might find it not ideal for her) However, I take issue with Dr. Swanson saying that a working outside the home mom who has a baby isn’t “return[ing] to work within days of delivering a child.” She is STILL working (and most moms who work keep their kids home because it is too expensive or stressful to send a kid to daycare/germs). and saying “This reality reflects the SAHM commitment to career, too.” What does that say about the working mom?? that she isn’t committed to her career if she recovers from a vaginal/c-sect delivery in the medically advised time and tries to bond with her newborn? or that her kids aren’t a career for her? And while I agree that kids going to school are around germs, I have to point out, according to Dr Swanson’s logic, if the kids are in school (or daycare) then you’re not a SAHM. I’m not sure what you are. But that is my point. I hope that clarifies my original post. And I appreciate the feedback.
laura gaines says
So the more I think about it, I think I’d just have preferred the argument be made that ALL moms return to work right after giving birth, it is just working inside the home. (in other words, leaving SAHM versus Working Mom thing out of it) And also, if nothing was said about dedication to a career. And the more I’ve thought about this, while I think it is great she is a woman CEO, and beyond that a mom CEO, I will neither praise nor berate her maternity leave. I will simply respect it as her own. But what I would praise or be in awe of, is her taking steps to allow all employees the flexibility to work from home when they need to be with their family, and to give all employees the support to stay at home with their family when they need to etc. Anyway, I appreciate the chance to think this through.
AM says
I have followed Marissa’s story with interest because it reminded me of my own predicament. I work for a technology company and turned down a promotion to a senior executive level when I was expecting my first child because I did not want to work through my maternity leave. I was surprised by how many people thought it was not a very wise decision !
I had a choice of accepting the promotion and getting back to work within weeks and have my baby looked after by a nanny, work out flexi time arrangements etc but I was clear that I wanted to be with my baby full time in the initial months with no distractions whatsoever and my career which I have put so much into for years can wait a while. It is a choice I made and I don’t regret it. I cannot imagine having it any other way. I agree with Kaisa above who says that things begin to sink in only after the first couple of weeks , which are relatively easy, and it is difficult to stick to the plans you may have made before the birth of how quickly you can return to work etc. I guess things change once the feeling of motherhood sinks in and you don’t want to be away from your newborn even for a couple of hours.
For all you know Marissa will juggle the obligations of her job and the newborn, and it is obviously her personal choice and nobody’s business. To each his own I guess and best of luck to her !